I’m sat on the floor of the carriage and the train is now thundering along the tracks. My master has either forgotten or abandoned me. I thought he had just gone to the bathroom, but it has been over an hour and he hasn’t returned. I’m getting worried. There’s something ticking inside of me.
We brown paper boxes only have eyes on the outside, so we rarely get to see what people put inside us, not unless they show it to us, or we catch a glimpse, which is only possible if we are facing the right way round. We all wished we could see inside and know what people were putting into us, but you can’t see what your eyes aren’t capable of seeing.
My master must not have known I was alive. Not many people do, we are brown paper boxes after all. But we see, we think, we feel. That’s why we would love to know what was being put inside of us. We carry so much, and yet see so little.
Some know the truth, and they look after us right. Yes, they know what we do, how hard we work carrying all these things that people need and want. They know how hard it is to go here and there and everywhere. And we brown paper boxes are forever thankful for those people who understand that, and even more thankful to those who show us what they put inside us. I wish my present master had, this ticking was scaring me.
Christmas is the best. I’ve never been used at Christmas, but I know many brown paper boxes who have, and they all tell the same story, that the being wrapped in wrapping paper part of Christmas sucked, hard to breathe apparently, but the joy in people’s faces, especially children’s, as they free us from suffocation, every brown paper box who has experienced it says the same thing. It’s truly beautiful. I hope I live to see that just once. What I would give to see it just once.
But I’d been abandoned. Abandoned boxes never have happy endings, especially ones with something ticking inside of them.
And hell, there was a child on this carriage.
I was worrying about nothing. My master had probably just forgotten me, and it was just a clock inside. He would come back. Yes, I was sure. He had been so meticulous with me, so caring. Ever since he had carefully placed inside of me whatever it was he had placed inside of me, he had held me so close to him. I had never felt more loved for, more cared for. I had thought that this was a man who knew how to treat a brown paper box right.
You see, so many people treat us badly, they tear us open in such a manner that we can’t be reused, and then they throw us in the bin, and not the recycle one, the landfill one where we are left to rot. But not this guy, this guy had treated me with such care.
And yet he had abandoned me on a train. A packed train that was heading for King’s Cross station, London.
A man was approaching. I wondered if he would open me up and look inside. I wished he would, then I would know if I had been betrayed. If my owner had used me, if my owner planned to destroy me, and in the most hateful of ways. It would be a cruel irony if that was the case, that the man who had cared for me most, would be the one to end my service as a carrier of goods. It’s a good life carrying goods to people you know.
The man finally reached me and sat down on the opposite side of the carriage; he was looking at me. I knew what he was thinking, that’s a brown paper box and it’s just sitting there on a train, no owner in sight. I could already see the alarm bells ringing in his mind, and yet he was just sitting there.
There was no doubting about why, he was clearly thinking to himself that if he reported the package, it may delay the train. And this was London, and the trains were delayed enough as it was.
Forget that, you fool. Come and open me!
He wasn’t going to. Damn him. There was something was ticking inside of me, it could be a clock, but with each second that my master did not return, the more I became certain it was a bomb. Christ, we brown paper boxes have hearts of gold; we like helping people, not killing and maiming people.
Please, open me up, I begged the man who was still looking at me. Save me from this evil.
He walked out of the carriage, and I was once again left alone, all the while the young child and his mother remained on the carriage. To take a child with me. I was certain there was an afterlife; how could I live in it knowing this child was there with me because of what was inside of me.
The carriage door opened again. Had the man come back?
No, it was better. The train conductor had come, and his eyes were on me. The man must’ve reported my presence. He looked me over, but did not touch me. He then lowered his ears to me, and I knew from the worried expression on his face that he had heard the ticking.
He stepped back and massaged his chin, then he left. What the hell! Why would he do that? Don’t leave me. Come back. Open me. I must know what is inside.
If I had a lip, I would bite it. The conductor could not know what was inside me, and yet he had left me alone with only the mother and the child. He should have taken me with him at least. Got me away from them.
He had returned, a policeman in tow. The policeman told the mother and child to leave the carriage, which scared me more than anything. A policeman giving that order, it had to confirm what was inside me.
What was that screeching?
The train, it was stopping, and quickly. The policeman and conductor left the carriage. Were they leaving me here to die alone?
Better alone, then taking anybody with me. If only I could have seen a Christmas, just once.
The carriage door opened. Another policeman. He was wearing heavily padded clothing, bomb squad written on his gear. I was saved, he was going to remove the bomb from me, give me the chance to see Christmas. Save me, I begged as he crouched down to me.
He carefully opened my top. I wished I could see what he was seeing. I could not. In fact, I could now see nothing. He had picked me up, and he was holding my eyes against his torso. Where was he taking me?
His van. I was now in the back of it, he had placed me there completely alone and I remained there alone for forty minutes.
When the doors opened, it was by a robot. It picked me up, and carried me into the middle of a field where it left me. Why was it leaving me? Come back, I pleaded.
It wasn’t going to. They were going to leave whatever was inside me inside me. It felt evil. Cruel. I just wanted to see Christmas. Why would they not save me and let me have just one moment of joy? Did they not know I was alive? Was there nobody who would save a brown paper box from death?
The answer was obvious, and as the ticks fell silent, I closed my eyes, certain in my dreams that in the distance there was a Christmas tree, and I was under it.
Thanks for reading, I truly hope you enjoyed my short story! This was written as an entry for a short story competition, where the theme was a brown paper box.
Leave a Reply